Scottish Budget Bill 2026 - 27 (the Budget (Scotland) (No. 5) Bill): child rights and wellbeing impact assessment

Child Rights and Wellbeing Impact Assessment

1. Brief Summary

Type of proposal:

• Bill

Name the proposal, and describe its overall aims and intended purpose.

The proposal is the Scottish Budget Bill for financial year 2026-27 (the Budget (Scotland) (No. 5) Bill (“the Bill”)). The aims and purposes of the Bill are to authorise maximum limits for expenditure by Ministerial portfolios within the Scottish Government for financial year 2026-27, and to specify the purposes for which resources can be used within the respective portfolios.

The Bill authorises overall portfolio spending amounts for financial year 2026-27 but does not constitute or give effect to any decisions as to how, or on what, to spend the allocated resources. The Bill is separate and distinct from the Budget Statement, which is covered by a separate CRWIA which will be published on 19 January 2026 within the suite of assessments covered by the Strategic Integrated Impact Assessment in relation to the 2026-27 Budget Statement, the Scottish Spending Review and the Infrastructure Delivery Pipeline. The Bill is a necessary step to provide the legal basis to permit spending by the Scottish Government for financial year 2026-27 by allocating a maximum resource limit to individual Ministerial portfolios for specified purposes.

The Budget Statement describes the proposed spend within each Ministerial portfolio, which will be authorised by the Bill, if the Bill is approved by the Scottish Parliament, and then gains Royal Assent and comes into force as the Budget Act 2026. During the financial year 2026-27, any changes which may be required to the approved portfolio maximum spend limits would need to be authorised by the Scottish Parliament via the Autumn and Spring budget revision regulations. The Budget Act (as revised in-year) provides the necessary legislative authority to allocate resources but does not constitute fixed spending decisions.

Start date of proposal’s development:

The Budget process is continuous and year-round, but development in earnest starts following the Programme for Government, which was announced in the Scottish Parliament this year on 6 May 2025. The process of drafting the Bill began on instruction to Parliamentary Counsel, following the UK Budget, on 26 November 2025.

Start date of CRWIA process:

14 October 2025

2. With reference given to the requirements of the UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024 , which aspects of the proposal are relevant to/impact upon children’s rights?

The realisation of children’s rights requires the mobilisation, allocation, and targeted expenditure of public funds. The Bill is the mechanism that enables proposed maximum resource limits allocated via the Bill to be set for each Ministerial portfolio.

The Bill forms part of the overarching Budget process through which the Scottish Ministers comply with Article 4 of the UNCRC requirements (as incorporated into Scots law). This Article requires the Scottish Ministers to undertake all appropriate legislative, administrative, and other measures for the implementation of the UNCRC requirements and, as part of this, to achieve sufficient public resources for the realisation of children’s rights.

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (“CRC”), in its General Comment No. 19 on public budgeting for the realization of children’s rights, explains its view that one of the many ways to achieve sufficient resources for realising children’s rights is to take into account Article 2 (the right to non-discrimination), Article 3 (the best interests of the child), Article 6 (the right to life, and to survival and development (to the maximum extent possible)), and Article 12 (the right to be heard) and therefore the Bill is also relevant to Articles 2, 3, 4, 6 and 12 of the UNCRC requirements (as incorporated into Scots law). These Articles have been considered as part of the Child Rights and Wellbeing Impact Assessment process undertaken for the strategic decisions made in the Budget Statement which set the portfolio allocation figures which are then specified in the Bill. Evidence of any identified impacts against those Articles of the UNCRC requirements is reflected in the separate CRWIA for the Budget Statement which, as noted above, will be published in the Strategic Integrated Impact Assessment on 19 January 2026.

3. Please provide a summary of the evidence gathered which will be used to inform your decision-making and the content of the proposal

The following reflects the process to assess impacts on the UNCRC requirements (as incorporated) for both the Budget Statement and the Bill. A wide range of evidence was considered to inform decision-making, including:

Portfolio evidence. Portfolios were asked to carry out a strategic integrated assessment across five statutory duties (Public Sector Equality Duty and the related Scottish specific duties, Fairer Scotland Duty, Consumer Duty, Child Rights and Wellbeing Impact Assessment, and Island Communities Impact Assessment). Portfolios were also asked to assess a sample of Scottish Government Division or Unit budget lines (Level 4) against relevant protected characteristics, which included age.

Specifically, for the CRWIA, Portfolios were asked to consider whether changes to their proposed budget lines (increasing, decreasing or remaining the same once the effects of inflation or changes in demand have been taken into account) at Ministerial Portfolio level (Level 2), Scottish Government Directorate level (Level 3) and if necessary at Scottish Government Division or Unit level (Level 4) had a potentially positive, negative or neutral impact on children’s rights. If an impact was considered to be negative, they were asked to assess whether that could result in a potential incompatibility with the UNCRC requirements (as incorporated). The responsibility for individual impact assessments for policy delivery sits with each policy team and they would have been able to draw on any Child Rights and Wellbeing Impact Assessments (“CRWIAs”) produced for individual spending decisions and any engagement with young people that had taken place at the policy development stage.

Distributional analysis of tax, welfare and selected areas of resource spending was also considered. This included analysis by different family type, including children - specifically lone parents, large families and families with a child under one.

A Child Poverty tagging pilot was also undertaken, which attempted to identify spending most likely to materially influence child poverty outcomes.

The analysis also drew on a review of wider evidence, including evaluation findings, previous impact assessments conducted by the Scottish Government, strategic integrated impact assessments produced outside Scotland, and other relevant external research.

A Ministerial workshop was held on 25 November 2025 that included a focus on child poverty, which allowed a cross-cutting cumulative impact on children to be considered.

This evidence formed the basis of the impact assessment reflected in the CRWIA for the strategic decisions within the Budget Statement (to be published in the Strategic Integrated Impact Assessment). That assessment informed the decisions within the Budget Statement on the portfolio budget allocation figures, which are then specified in the Bill and therefore the assessment undertaken has informed both the Budget Statement and the Bill and has been used to inform this CRWIA for the Bill.

Engagement with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the National Advisory Council on Women and Girls and the Equality and Human Rights Budget Advisory Group helped to shape the integrated assessment approach conducted this year in relation to the Budget Statement (as well as the Scottish Spending Review and Infrastructure Delivery Pipeline).

In addition, the Scottish Government has an ongoing commitment to making sure that the voices of children and young people are heard at the highest levels of Government. This takes place in annual meetings between the members of the Children’s Parliament, Scottish Youth Parliament, the Scottish Government Executive Team (the senior leaders of Government) and Cabinet (the First Minister, Deputy First Minister and all of the Cabinet Secretaries). This year’s Cabinet meeting with children and young people took place on 18 November 2025, prior to final budget allocation decisions being taken and before the CRWIAs for the Budget Statement and for the Bill were finalised. At that meeting, members of the Scottish Youth Parliament highlighted as the key issues concerning young people: ending gender-based violence; investing in and protecting youth work services and increasing mental health training and support. Members of the Children’s Parliament highlighted as their ‘calls to action’: climate crisis education; vaping; bullying and mental health in schools. These key issues and calls to action were highlighted in briefing which supported the Ministerial workshop on 25 November 2025.

4. Further to the evidence described at ‘3’ have you identified any 'gaps' in evidence which may prevent determination of impact? If yes, please provide an explanation of how they will be addressed

There were no gaps in evidence that prevented the determination of the overall impact of the strategic decisions made within the Scottish Budget Statement about the portfolio allocation figures which are then specified in the Bill.

As with all CRWIAs, this assessment represents a view at a given point in time, and relied upon the evidence and analysis available at that time.

5. Analysis of Evidence

This analysis refers purely to the Budget (Scotland) (No. 5) Bill as a legislative mechanism, and not to the wider strategic decisions undertaken and announced in the Budget Statement.

That wider analysis, reflecting the decisions taken in the Budget Statement, is in a separate CRWIA which will be published in the Strategic Integrated Impact Assessment. That analysis should be referred to in conjunction with this CRWIA.

The overall assessment of the Bill itself is that it impacts positively on UNCRC Article 4, as it is a legislative mechanism forming part of the overarching Budget process which facilitates Scottish Ministers’ compliance with the requirement under Article 4 to undertake all appropriate legislative, administrative, and other measures for the implementation of the UNCRC requirements and, as part of this, to achieve sufficient resources for the realisation of children’s rights. The Bill itself provides a mechanism to ensure that the portfolio allocation figures for Scottish Government Ministerial portfolios for financial year 2026-27 are set out and are scrutinised, debated and authorised by the Scottish Parliament. There were no incompatibilities identified as part of the assessment undertaken on the Budget Bill.

6. What changes (if any) have been made to the proposal as a result of this assessment?

The analysis in this CRWIA has not resulted in any changes being made to the Bill. The impacts of the decisions around portfolio allocation figures on children’s rights and wellbeing are assessed in the separate CRWIA for the Budget Statement (published in the Strategic Integrated Impact Assessment), as the strategic decisions on the portfolio allocation figures are made within the Budget Statement itself.